Replay 07: Opening the Temple of Learning

Chapter 324 What’s the use of you?
Foundations, research institutes, and universities in the United States tried to find ways to get computers back from Xia Country.

How to do it specifically? It's simple, just ask the school. Many professors and experts in Xia country have close relations with these foundations in the United States and are very happy to serve.

Especially the key universities in Yanjing and Shanghai, this type of school can be called preparatory classes for studying abroad, and cannot be counted among the educational achievements of Xiaguo’s higher education institutions.

People go abroad after graduation, which is a great contribution to the Xia country.

Not only does it make no contribution, it may even help foreigners to suppress their counterparts in Xia Country, which will have a completely counterproductive effect.

Originally, American foundations and well-known universities were planning to buy it at a high price, but a group of people from Xia Country brought their own dog food to help. Even the Americans felt embarrassed and just gave a few more study abroad quotas and a few more immigration quotas to the elite and that was it.

With this calculation, the bootlickers on the Xia country's side feel that they are the ones who make the big bucks.

However, is the divine ship Fuxi K2 so easy to grab?
It's too hot to get one.

The problem is that some professors and scholars from some well-known universities in Xia Country have never thought about buying them honestly.

They went directly to Shenchuan and said they wanted to give Shenchuan a chance to sponsor them in exchange for the endorsement of colleges and universities, so that everyone would trust Shenchuan more.

This is also a common practice, and many good universities are sponsored.

For example, universities such as Shuimu and Yenching will have computer vendors proactively provide computers to the library, and students can use them for free.

This is a disguised advertising opportunity, and many computer brands are rushing to grab it.

To put it another way, this is advertising, but it is also an opportunity to accumulate talent and connections.

After graduation, students will choose their own companies, and the school may also cooperate, which is a win-win situation.

But this time they all failed, and all their requests were directly rejected by the divine ship under the instruction of Lu Shan.

Lu Shan doesn't have much good feelings towards the scholars in these schools. Most of these professors' work is to act as brokers rather than engage in academic research.

By cooperating with this group of people, you have ruined your reputation.

When the professors saw that Shenchuan was so ignorant, a literature professor at a university in Shanghai called Shenchuan arrogant.

But they honestly changed their mind, saying that they needed laptops for scientific research and hoped that Shenchuan could sell a batch of them.

The change from being arrogant at first to being respectful later became extremely natural. If he could focus on the students and the Xia Kingdom, it would be fine for Lu Shan to give them away for free.

Lu Shan has no time to take care of these people. He will naturally provide computers to schools with cooperative content, but forget it for those without cooperative projects.

In the end, the United States was desperate for the graphene version of Fuxi K2 and could only mobilize domestic informants to solve the problem by raising the purchase price.

Thanks to their efforts, they were able to buy more than 20 units at a high price.

The average cost of one machine is 30,000 yuan, which is almost eight times the market price.

After the computers were purchased, U.S. capital was immediately allocated to various well-known universities, with priority given to those with graphene research projects, and next to those with strong physics and materials chemistry majors, so that everyone could work together to crack the technology as quickly as possible.

Soon these top scientific research institutions encountered a huge problem. Once they took the batteries apart, they discovered that the graphene batteries had a special structure, which meant that they could not be put back together after being taken apart.

If you forcibly seal the battery and then use it, the battery will be scrapped immediately.

The researchers were not convinced and disassembled and installed five laptops in succession, and the results were the same.

There are not many people who can look at the computer with their eyes, so they dare not be so overconfident.

Finally, everyone figured out the reason.

The reason is that the graphene plasma will be integrated with the material inside the outer shell. Only when it is complete can the electronics work normally. Once it is disassembled, the structure will be destroyed, which will naturally lead to serious consequences.

After learning about this, the research team changed their thinking and used CT, MRI and other tools to scan the inside of the battery in an attempt to analyze its internal structure.

What is scanned out is something similar to a circuit, just like the walls of a maze.

Each battery is not exactly the same. Apparently, when pouring the graphene plasma, they just shake it evenly and then put it in. However, the performance of the battery is surprisingly stable.

The US research team estimated that this was probably the result of the stable material ratio.

In other words, just put this much stuff into each battery, and it will work normally and stably.

So there is another extended inference, that is, when the graphene battery is not working, it is in this state, and it seems that all of them are too similar. But once it works, it will become completely consistent.

In short, I can't make out anything special after looking at it, and I will definitely break it if I take it apart. Material analysis can show that it is graphene, but I can't analyze the proportions of other mixed materials, and I can't even figure out how to make the preparation method efficient and cheap.

So what's the point of researching these graphene batteries?
"I just don't believe it. Could it be that the Xia people really captured the aliens? Did they torture them into producing advanced technology?"

"Don't say these useless things. Use other methods to test the ingredients. Analyze the proportions and reproduce them. Maybe it will be useful."

"It's useless. Other universities have already done this. Let's not waste resources."

"You can't just do nothing, right?"

"Of course we can't give up. Let me announce our next idea - match!"

"match?"

The specific idea is to match, using the material information currently available, such as material type and proportion, to combine related substances by yourself.

For example, if there is oxygen and molybdenum, they are set to form molybdenum trioxide, or other types of oxides, and then the model is constructed based on the performance in related environments.

“Too… unreliable!”

“It’s just too much work.”

The team members were amazed. This was simply reversing the shape of the building from a pile of raw materials.

Not to mention, it’s better than not knowing what the materials are. At least you know there are sand, steel bars, and bricks, and then you can build the most reasonable building according to the principles of architecture and mechanics.

Every university has its own unique approach. Try different ideas first and then move forward once there is a major breakthrough.

There is an academic exchange meeting almost every day, and everyone is very anxious about the progress.

The last time I encountered something like this that I had no idea about was last time, which was topological semimetal semiconductors.

The Institute of Materials at the University of Pennsylvania is the most troubled research institute. There has been no progress on topological semimetals so far. Now there is a task assigned to them on graphene technology. What should they do?
After the Materials Research Institute thought about the matter, it decided to use this opportunity to let its colleagues give it some reference.

The materials chemistry program at the University of Pennsylvania is strong in itself, and this time there are professors from many universities of the same level coming here, which can be said to be a gathering of talented people.

Professors from other universities also wanted to take the opportunity to see how the topological semimetal thing had progressed.

After three days of meetings, professors from other universities came to a conclusion - could there be any problem with the information that Tan Ming obtained from Jiangzhou University?
This idea is not the result of the professors' conclusions drawn in a fit of rage because they could not understand the subject, but is inferred from many details.

The information produced by Tan Ming is fake and fabricated by himself.

Although his skills were not low, there were too many details to pay attention to when making a forgery, and he did not have much time to sort them out before handing it in.

Even if I wanted to organize it to make it logically consistent, I couldn't do it. The information was submitted as soon as possible. I finished it on my side, but I couldn't explain it to the other side.

If the details are not figured out, you can use theory to explain it at the beginning, but as time goes by, things that violate logic will appear.

In the past two years, Binfa has been thinking that there is something wrong with the variables, which can be said to be the confusion of the authorities. In addition, it is not convenient to disclose the research progress, for fear that other universities will grab the results, so no one discusses it.

This time, the Materials Research Institute of the University of Pennsylvania has given up and is going to tell you the truth. If nothing works, we are going to give up. If you have a good idea, we will try again.

Other laboratories are also involved, but to varying degrees.

Pininfarina is the biggest victim, and the others are smaller victims.

After a secret meeting, this group of fools combined academic and related clues and finally confirmed the fact that Tan Ming had tricked them.

After reaching the conclusion, Binfa University was furious. They had provided Tan Ming with good food and drink, but they did not expect this result.

Other universities also looked unhappy. They had invested millions or even tens of millions of dollars, and the overall losses had exceeded one billion dollars. And all of this was caused by Tan Ming.

"No wonder there has been no progress after so long! Lu Shan upgrades almost every six months, and increasing the memory from 8G to 16G is as easy as pie!"

"Based on the temperament of the Xia people, I have a reasonable suspicion that Lu Shan definitely has better technology. The fact that we can see a 16GB memory stick means that he may have made a 32G memory stick!"

"I also think so!"

"And the hard drive has grown to 1TB without making any noise. The key is that the hardware size remains the same, but the performance is improved out of thin air!"

"We have to find that damn Tan Ming and ask him what's going on!"

Just like that, the United States, having lost its patience, reported the matter directly to the intelligence organization. Tan Ming was arrested and repeatedly interrogated.

Tan Ming's words were inconsistent and after persisting for a while, he finally admitted the fact that the information was falsified.

At first, Tan Ming defended himself by saying that he was not the one who falsified the papers, but that Lu Shan had misled them. However, he could not bear the beating later and admitted that he had falsified the papers before.

It is useless to say anything at this point. It is a fact that Tan Ming failed to see through Lu Shan’s misleading information in time, causing losses to the United States.

Afterwards, Tan Ming did not guide the United States to make breakthroughs in the topological semimetal project. Overall, Tan Ming was of no value to the United States.

So, a few days later, the news of Tan Ming's suicide spread throughout the academic community.

Tan Ming's suicide note was printed out through a computer. It meant that he had made a major breakthrough in the semiconductor field with the help of a US laboratory, but was relentlessly pursued by some Xia people and was forced to commit suicide.

Even after death, a person still has some value.

How did Tan Ming die? His hands and feet were tied behind his back, and he threw himself into the river. The relevant authorities determined it to be suicide.

The news of Tan Ming's death spread back to Xia Kingdom, and those who understood naturally understood what it meant.

After dealing with Tan Ming's issue, the United States withdrew its topological semimetal project and focused on graphene batteries, hoping to make up for its losses here.

This group of professors divided the work on graphene preparation and battery technology. Whichever university was good at a certain project would specialize in that aspect, trying to replicate Lu Shan's thesis, even if it was only part of it.

He looked up papers, data, equipment, integrated the strength of his own university, and even looked for talents across disciplines. He tried every possible means, starting from the theory, trying to understand Lu Shan's theoretical model. But he only had a partial understanding.

It is better to have some knowledge than to know nothing at all. Scientific research is often discovered through accidental discoveries.

So professors from American universities started conducting experiments like alchemists doing experiments to open a blind river, trying to replicate Lu Shan's thesis.

Unfortunately, a little bit of difference means a big difference, and no result can be obtained at all.

After all the hard work, let alone completing a set of experiments, even the model is full of errors and omissions. How can we get any results by doing experiments based on this model?

The depressing Americans held one meeting after another, asking about the progress every day, which made many people depressed.

They couldn't understand why Xia Country had mastered this technology.

What's even more uncomfortable is, why is it that Lu Shan? Xia Country has no equipment and its basic theory is backward.

A bunch of bad cards turned out to be a royal flush, which is more painful than Xia Guo taking the lead and achieving results.

The graphene battery is right in front of us, but we can't test anything after disassembling it, and we can't even find the idea. Many people can't figure it out. Lu Shan clearly wrote a paper, and the idea is there, but we just can't reproduce it!
"I can only attribute the reason to the fact that Lu Shan's mathematical attainments made the logic of his model incomprehensible."

"Well... we can't understand it, but computers naturally understand it."

"I think we seem to have overlooked one thing, that is, we underestimated Lu Shan's hands-on ability. According to reliable clues, every time he had a new idea, he would ask for equipment, and after the equipment arrived, he would modify it himself. While modifying it, he also taught his subordinates."

"Ah? I thought the higher-ups had assigned him a team of technicians to help realize his ideas."

"I thought so at first, but later I found out that it was Lu Shan who was teaching the technical team. I heard that the Xiaguo Academy of Sciences and some universities have sent people to Lu Shan's factory to study. He also set up a natural science laboratory, and his training method is completely different from the existing Xiaguo system."

"That means Lu Shan is using his knowledge to cultivate more talents, right?"

"Yes, I'm afraid that in the future, our advantages in terms of mid- to high-end theoretical talents will no longer exist."

After a moment of silence, someone suddenly started cursing: "Is the idiot from Princeton University here? Why did they let such a person go back in the first place? He is simply a replica of the Qian from decades ago!"

The man with the surname Qian is the founder of NASA in the United States. He found a way to return to Xia Country and supported the backbone of Xia Country. What Americans regret most to this day is letting him go.

Oh, now I have to add Lu Shan to the list of the most regretful.

(End of this chapter)